The Laughing Man returns to again kidnap the CEO of Serano Genomics, just as he did six years before. Returning to the scene of the café where Serano was first kidnapped, he and the Laughing Man share the story of the events leading up to the kidnapping and the events following it. During the conversation The Laughing Man asks Serano why he never fulfilled his promise to tell the truth, and in response Serano informs the Laughing Man that the whole time, the Secretary General had him under arrest. Meanwhile, Section 9 determines the Secretary General to be the man pulling the strings behind the Laughing Man scandal, and have resolved to take Serano into protective custody to obtain his testimony. When the team discovers that Serano has been kidnapped by the Laughing Man they mount a frantic search to find and secure him. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that the Laughing Man was actually the Major in disguise and that the entire operation combined with Serano's conversation with the "Laughing Man" was Section 9's plot to confirm Serano Genomics' dealings with Secretary General Yakushima.

The Laughing Man: A basic rule of thumb about hackers is that we live to peek at things that others have hidden, it's our nature. But, the depth of darkness in the hotbed of corruption that I had tried to challenge defeated me, and all I could do was become a deaf-mute, and avert my eyes from it all. Just as you've done these past six years. The Laughing Man, hmm, that was a catchy name they came up with. And here I've been thinking that if I was unsuccessful in persuading you, I'd simply follow Holden's quote and disappear. They went with the Salinger angle, too, good grief.